How long do you think you could not go to the supermarket?

[laughoutquiet]

How many days do you think you (or whoever does the shopping) could manage without going? It's just me and DH.

Due to long running furlough and limited funds, I thought I'd see what I could do. Pre-covid I was a lazy planner and used to go for small (but relatively expensive!) shops every couple of days. Lockdown has forced me into going once a week and now I have a proper freezer too.

I'm going to try 2 weeks. I haven't especially shopped for this, the fridge is not full to the gunnels but the freezer is around half full. Dry store about average. No takeaways allowed.

Shite, I just thought about milk

Dry goods and freezer are well stocked but I would need to get milk, cheese and yogurt so if I nipped to Sainsbury’s local to get those I could probably then avoid a big shop for a couple of weeks.

There are 4 of us and l go once a week. I could go two weeks l think bar nipping to the corner shop for bread, milk and fresh fruit but then if l was buying fruit from the corner shop l would need a second mortgage.

I always tend to think ooh I need this one thing which means I end up buying another ten items.

Hopefully giving myself a shopban will stop this!

@Solongtoshort

There are 4 of us and l go once a week. I could go two weeks l think bar nipping to the corner shop for bread, milk and fresh fruit but then if l was buying fruit from the corner shop l would need a second mortgage.

I have canned fruit that's collecting dust in the cupboard - not quite the same though is it?- and I'm on furlough, so can make bread,

I recall this being asked on many posts at the start of the 1st lockdown last year. I'd say 2 weeks whilst still having fresh and frozen veg. Maybe a month if I included frozen bread, frozen cheese, long life milk, bake-at-home bread rolls and made meals from mainly store cupboard items.

I'm sure under zombie conditions I could definitely make my cupboards last longer. It's more to make me be a little more creative.

I've been doing this more often throughout lockdown. I also tend to think "oh, I'll just nip into town for such and such" and then buy more stuff.

Dh is the king of looking at the cupboards and fridge then thinking he needs to go out and buy specific ingredients because "there's nothing in". But yhe cupboards are full!! And there is enough fresh stuff to cobble something together. So, I have a shop ban and we must use up what we've got. I hate food waste.

I think it comes from when i was a skint single mum. My older kids said we used to eat like kings when I was using up stuff because I would spend the day in the kitchen finding random things to put together. It always made for a really lovely meal.

I've tried a different approach this month and after having a clear out of the cupboards, i went and did a huge store cupboard and cleaning stuff shop in the hope I only need to go get fresh stuff weekly to top up. In my mind the store cupboard could last the month. Maybe even more. We'll see.

Around 5 days depending on milk consumption. And noone here will entertain UHT. I would go for the milk man but he is double the prize for organic milk.

Bread may be another issue but I am ok baking a simple bread and flour and yeast are cupboard staples here.

Fresh fruit may be an issue but that's something we can survive a couple of day.

Friends lived very remotely and had a chest freezer where they had always a milk supply. They only said that defrosted milk goes off faster than freshly bought one.

This is embarrassing to admit, but pre pandemic I was 22 and lived in London. I worked full time whilst at uni full time so was never at home. After I graduated I was always out socialising or at work, so again was never at home!

I would eat out or constantly order top tier deliveroo - I never actually grocery shopped and never had food in aside from pasta the pandemic has been a culture shock

Probably up to two weeks for ‘proper’ meals, and 5-6 weeks in a zombie invasion situation, eating plain rice & HP sauce by the end of it

There are 5 of us. In the 1st lockdown I was going about every 12/13 days. Could have got to 2 weeks but it would have been some very random meals.

Now we get a delivery about every 10 days and get fruit/veg from the market every 2 weeks which is fine. Make good use of the freezer, I get 20/24 pints of milk and freeze some of them, freeze bread though we do make our own bread sometimes. Things we run out of most by day 10 are biscuits and breakfast cereals.

If I had a big freezer, storage space and a car I could probably do the main stuff once a month and once a week at a smaller shop for milk etc.
But I don't so I have to stick to 2 or 3 times a week. Shopping is so boring.

I've been very poor (homeless) and now I'm comfortable earning what I think is a good salary. I think I've spoilt myself. I want to bring our food spend down and go back to basics a little more, where I can.

After next week, when I do my meat top up shop, about two months I think. Oh, I’d have to buy and freeze bread, but other than that we’d be ok! As long as we can still have deliveries? Not supermarket ones but the milkman comes 3 x a week and I get a fortnightly fruit and veg delivery from the fruit and veg man!

@DisgruntledPelican rice and HP

You can freeze milk btw. People on the moneysavingexpert website seem to always buy it (and everything else!) with a yellow sticker and freeze it.

Our freezer and cupboards are pretty full so we could probably go 3 weeks or more but the meals would be a bit weird towards the end! I do tend to have some tinned fruit, frozen berries and frozen veg so we would be able to have relatively balanced meals although rice would feature heavily as I buy the big sacks. I usually have a loaf of bread in the freezer as well.

2 weeks would be doable with meat from the freezer and pantry ingredients to make meals. I'd need milk every week if I didn't bulk buy.

However, there are 4 of us and we eat an awful lots of fresh fruit and veg. A couple of days of frozen I'd cope with, but if I wanted to keep to healthy, varid diets with a rainbow of veg/fruit every day, I'd need to top up every 5 days

@PattyPan luckily I have a great DH is wouldn't turn a hair at done weird combos.

I'm almost looking forward to challenging myself now!

Buy filtered milk, it has a very long date

@PattyPan

You can freeze milk btw. People on the moneysavingexpert website seem to always buy it (and everything else!) with a yellow sticker and freeze it.

Our freezer and cupboards are pretty full so we could probably go 3 weeks or more but the meals would be a bit weird towards the end! I do tend to have some tinned fruit, frozen berries and frozen veg so we would be able to have relatively balanced meals although rice would feature heavily as I buy the big sacks. I usually have a loaf of bread in the freezer as well.

I've tried freezing milk, it's really not all that pleasant!

@ilikefastcars

Buy filtered milk, it has a very long date

Yes! We've had the Bob stuff before... lasted two weeks I think.

I could buy my weekly shop from local shops and the farmers market. Tins and dry foods I'd be fine for a couple of months.

Havent been in a shop for a year.
Have supermarket delivery 7-21d apart.
We freeze
Milk
Cheese
Butter
Bread have uht milk

We store the extra food in boxes. In winter bread was lasting the 2 weeks. As was the fruit.

If there were just myself and DH at home, we could easily last on a shop every 2 weeks. Not every night do we want a big meal so would have something like egg and chips, beans on toast, or jacket potato with a topping. Milk and bread frozen, fresh fruit one week, yoghurts and tinned fruit the second. Shop bought cakes first week, then homemade cakes the second.

But at the moment we have 2 adult DS at home plus a dog, so weekly shop is topped up with bread and cakes from bakers, plus DS1 pays for a takeaway each week.